Indiana beach and fun spot.....sort of

I had monday off of work, so on sunday night we decided it was time for our first visit to Indiana beach.

Coming from Michigan, we left at 8am from shelby twp (about an hour north of detroit) and proceded to 696 to 275 to 80-90-65. For some reason it took us untill 3:00 cst to get to Indiana beach....no idea why.

But on the way down 80-90, we observed many billbords for fun spot park. We have never been to fun spot and the sign said it was only 5 miles away(and now open), so we decided to do a little side trip there.

We reach fun spot and we are greeted by a arrow shuttle loop and a OPEN THUR-SUN sign. Of course being monday, they were closed. I think that somebody at fun spot should change the billbords from "now open" to "open thur-sun", so people dont assume(like we did) that they are open.

Back on the road to Indiana bech.

We arive at the park at 3:00 cst, and of course we live in est so our watches still read 4:00. That ment we had to wait an hour to get a pop wrist band...no problem. It gave us time to eat lunch at the taco stand and to check out the haunted house.

The haunted house was great, it was well worth the $3.50 we paid to get in. It was a fairly long walk thrue and was well themed.

After that, we hit up the mini golf course at the turn around of the hoosier hurricane(and I beat amy preaty bad I may add). Later on we noticed that they had another course on the other end of the park.

It was now time to get our pop ride bands. Being an ace member, we recieved 50% off so it only cost us $19 for both uf us. What a great deal!!

Started off on the coasters, first stop.....hoosier hurricane. This was a great ride with a few pops of air, and a nice view of the park. Me and amy both enjoyed it.

Next stop, tigger.

This was a blast, not only was it very comfritible(sp) but it had some really intense hairpin turns. And best of all...NO SEATBELTS.

Next stop, cornball express.

What can I say about this coaster....Air and more air. I thought I was going to dislike this ride because it was short and not that big. Boy I was wrong. This ride had tons of ejector air time on it, and is now ranked in my personal top 10 wooden coasters.

Next, galaxy coaster.

This was a fun little ride that looks really cool sitting in the middle of the water slides. All in all, a fun ride.

Next up, lost coaster

Now I have heard stories about this ride being brutal, but imo, it wasent that bad. I enjoyed it so much that we came back and rode it 6 more times that day.

For the rest of the day we hit all the flat rides and den of the lost dark ride(I also creamed amy on this ride as well 80-750). I love to brag.

After that we had to play fasination, boy do I miss this game since cedarpoint removed it from the park. We then hit the gift shop to get our t-shirts and dvd on the park.

Decided it was time to leave, and started the long trip back home at about 9:30 pm cst.....ariving back home at 3:30 am.

All in all a great little park. My only complaint that I could find was when we went on the coasters, we had to wait for a full train and that ment just sitting there for 5-10 min waiting. Also, Amy did not like all the stairs she had to climb. And is it just me, or are there a lot of smokers in Indiana?

Its a nice little park that has a lot of charm to it, and I would not mind going back to sometime. I also loved the free parking.

Just out of curiousity, does anyone happen to know if you can get the 50% discount with any coaster club membership, say at Coasterbuzz, or does it have to be through ACE? I couldn't find any of the details for the discount on the Indiana Beach website.

Thanks for the info!

I enjoyed IB immensely on my visit in '03. Glad to hear you visited. I didn't get a chance to play Fascination or the mini-golf ( and quite a few other rides as well). Oh well, something to look forward to on my next visit.
So, how was the Haunted House? :)

I believe it was an ace thing only.

As far as Discounts:

on Wednesdays with a CVS receipt you can get buy one get one at IB.

On Fridays between 5pm and 11pm you can get a POP band for $10 with a Domino's proof of purchase. One discount per domino's purchase.

Local Coca-Cola products have a $5 off coupon for an all day combo pass. It is only good on weekdays.

May is a good time to go to IB. It has been buy one get one for the last several years during May.

There is the ACE discount.

Call the park to make sure if you want or see if there are any other discounts offered.

The other mini golf is included on the POP wristbands. Some people pass it by thinking there is an additional charge.

I'll agree that the improvements on Lost Coaster over the last few years have made it a much more enjoyable ride. I've ridden it at least a dozen times. I like it better going backward.

*** Edited 6/23/2005 4:53:12 PM UTC by Wabash Cannonball***

I forgot to mention that when we arived at the closed fun spot, we felt like the grizwalds on lampoons vacation.

"SORRY FOLKS, PARKS CLOSED"......lol

I drove by Fun Spot last Wednesday on my way to Geauga Lake. I was going that route anyway so no big deal. They were closed. I actually knew that they were closed Mon-Wed I just forgot. I've been to the park before so I wasn't disappointed.

I made the same mistake about Funspot this past Monday. We were driving from Great America to Cedar Point and were going to try and stop and visit until we pulled up and noticed that the park wasn't open. I had remembered that park closed at 5 but forgot that they were only open Thurs-Sun. Oh well. Maybe next time.

Just don't call 1-800-FUN-SPOT for info about the park. That is NOT their number. We found out the um, hard way. :-)

-Tina

Let me guess, they wanted a credit card number?;)

LMAO....Fun Spot was the first park I ever went to. My parents now regret it, they thought I would be scared of rides, now they realized that park is what turned me into an enthusiast. ;)

It was fun when I was a kid...used to be crowded too. I guess they aren't getting any good business anymore. :(

It was fun when you were a kid?

He's growing up so fast...

Yep, I already got my learners permit and everything. ;)

It was fun when I was a kid. Now I'm a teenager! ;)

Crazy,

Ignoring all construction, there is a faster way to Indiana Beach. I-94 to some highway south to US-24 I believe... I do not remember specifics now, but we took it a coule years back, and it was much faster.

You could also take US-24 (Telegraph rd.) all the way there, but that would take a loooong time. And yes, believe it or not, Indiana Beach sits on the same highway we know in Detroit as Telegraph... At least I am 99% sure it does.

About 10 of us took a side trip to Fun Spot last year during IB's Lost Coaster weekend. We had a blast.

The Afterburner was the first Arrow shuttle loop I had seen running since the last days of the Tbolt at Camden. It was pretty SWEET!

Hopefully Fun Spot AND Six Flags Elitch Gardens will keep theirs up and running for MANY years to come. I think they are the only 2 left but I could be wrong.

Pale Rider,

Yes, they did ;-) It was hilarious. En route to the park nobody really had checked to see what their hours were and nobody had the park's phone number. I guess we automatically assumed 800-FUN-SPOT was their number.

We were wrong. ;-)

-Tina

That is pretty funny Tina.:) By the way, the other last remaining U.S.Arrow shuttle loop is the Diamond Back at Frontier City. I've had the pleasure of riding both that one and the Sidewinder at SFEG and I must say that they are some of my favorite Arrows. Just great air if you are sitting in the front or back. I just really wish Funspot had been open when we stopped by last week. It was tough enough having to see the Thunderbolt rotting during our visit to Camden last year. Does anyone know if the Python is still in storage at SFA? Since these have made a habit of finding new homes, it would be nice to see it find a new one at a smaller park somewhere.

Frontier City....DiamondBack was "having issues" when we were there, never did get to ride it. We left early to get to Bell's (JUST as they started testing DB), only to find out Bell's was closed due to the same horrendous weather we ran across on the way into OKC.

Lesson learned: If you're unsure, CALL the park first...if I had known Bell's was closed, I'd have kept Mike and Tony awhile longer to try and get that Arrow shuttle looper. Ended up getting my first one at Fun Spot - a park infinitely more enjoyable than FC....which the employees hate as much as the guests! ;)

Heath, to the best of my knowledge, SFA is *warehousing* Python until it becomes rusted enough to take to the recyclers... :(

That's what I figured Bill. The thing has been in storage for what, like 6 years? It seems that if they could have sold it, they would have done so by now. It's really a shame that there are only a few of these left now. And good call on Frontier City. I actually thought that it was a cute park with all of the western theming. It however was the ops (one of which actually yelled at me, a first!) and the clientele that brought the park down for us.